The field of the invention is systems and methods for grossing tissue and preparing a tissue for pathology processing, such as histology, histochemistry, and the like. More particularly, the invention relates to systems and methods for rapid grossing and hypersampling of large surgical specimens.
In routine clinical work, surgical specimens are prepared for pathology processing by gross serial slicing. This serial slicing is usually performed free-hand. Under such conditions, especially for fatty tissues that lack internal support (e.g., breast tissue), the specimen becomes distorted and the minimum achievable slice thickness is limited to approximately 10 millimeters. The significant thickness of these tissue slices limits the ability to perceive diseased regions that lie deeper within the tissue slices. As a result of this limitation, the accuracy of tissue sampling in pathology is generally reduced for such tissue slices, resulting in a missed diagnosis of disease. The thickness of the tissue slices also increases the time needed for fixation, which may violate the guidelines for processing that tissue.
Although few devices are available for standardized gross slicing of hard specimens, these technologies are inadequate for flaccid specimens such as breast which require additional support.